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chlorine and your hair/skin

I don't have the luxury of having an outdoor shower, so I usually wait until a while after my swim to shower inside, as do my kids.

I guess my question is, is shampoo necessary to wash chlorine out of your hair, or would simply rinsing off with the water hoses and getting your hair pretty good do just as good? I was thinking about maybe keeping some conditioner out by the hose and just putting a bit in and leaving it after I rinse my hair. Any thoughts on this?

Re: chlorine and your hair/skin

Get some Nexxus Aloe Rid shampoo. It contains sodium thiosulfate,which is a chlorine neutralizer (same stuff used to neutralize chlorine in swimming pools, btw!) It will quickly stop any oxidative damage from the chlorine. (I've been a licensed Cosmetologist and Barber for over 30 years now so I know just a bit about this as well as a bit about pools )

Use it when you get in the house. Putting conditioner on your hair by the pool won't accomplish much, btw.

Re: chlorine and your hair/skin

Originally Posted by waterbear

Get some Nexxus Aloe Rid shampoo. It contains sodium thiosulfate,which is a chlorine neutralizer (same stuff used to neutralize chlorine in swimming pools, btw!) It will quickly stop any oxidative damage from the chlorine. (I've been a licensed Cosmetologist and Barber for over 30 years now so I know just a bit about this as well as a bit about pools )

Use it when you get in the house. Putting conditioner on your hair by the pool won't accomplish much, btw.

Re: chlorine and your hair/skin

Keep in mind that tap water usually has a chlorine reading of about 1-2ppm which is similar to that of a pool so it's not like you are bleaching your hair when you use your pool..

Not quite true around here which is why our pools are trouble free. The CPO course has been heavily influenced by the stabilized chlorine industry over the years and doesn't tell you the whole truth.
Read and learn and if you want to know more just ask:pool-school/chlorine_cya_chart_shock

As you can see 4-5 ppm FC is much more common.
Also, the chlorine in drinking water is usually in the form of cloramines and not FC so it's effect is a bit different.

Re: chlorine and your hair/skin

Keep in mind that tap water usually has a chlorine reading of about 1-2ppm which is similar to that of a pool so it's not like you are bleaching your hair when you use your pool..

Looking at Free Chlorine (FC) by itself is pointless if one does not also look at the Cyanuric Acid (CYA) level. The amount of "active" chlorine (hypochlorous acid) that does the bleaching is far, far lower in pools with CYA. At the normal FC/CYA levels recommended on this forum to prevent algae growth, these are equivalent to roughly 0.1 ppm FC with no CYA so far less harsh than tap water in terms of bleaching effects (and in practice the main effect seen even with chlorine in tap water or in indoor pools with no CYA is degradation of rubber so elasticity in swim suits).

Now total FC is relevant when one considers drinking the water since then it's the chlorine capacity and not its rate of reaction that is more relevant, but people should not be drinking quarts of pool water every day.

See these graphs to get an idea of what really happens with chlorine in water with CYA in it. This isn't taught in current NSPF CPO and APSP TECH courses.